A Galaxy of Darkness
by SpiritOfSherwood
Summary: Doctor Who/Warhammer 40k crossover. Hopefully not as geeky as it looks. Captain Jack rejoins the Doctor and Martha for a trip to the 41st Milennium, however an inter-dimensional whoopsy means that in the grim darkness of the far future there is only war..
1. Something is Wrong

**Well folks, I have to say that this is completely new to me. I would normally be sternly upholding my vow to carry on updating my Robin Hood work and any attempt to defy that has been mentally squashed but I have had this idea simmering away in my head for the past few months I can't take putting it off any more. It came to me after watching the Doctor's anti-war feelings in the Sontaran Stratagem/Poison Sky and the Doctor's Daughter. How would he cope in a nightmare future where his own beloved human race has become dependant on war and death in order to survive for one day longer? For those of you who are unfamiliar to Warhammer 40000, I'm afraid it is probably quite nerdy to normal people (even more so than Doctor Who). If you want to find out more then feel free to ask me in a review or message.**

**And now! On with the story!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who **_**or**_** Warhammer 40000 (If I did then The Doctor and Martha would be together however I won't be doing much if any of that in this one so don't panic (PLEASE DON'T FLAME ME HIGH, MIGHTY AND GLORIUS 10/ROSE SHIPPERS!!!)**

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war . . .

The deep abyss of space glistened pitch black as stars pricked the firmament with tiny droplets of quicksilver. Never before had the Segmentum Solar looked so dark. The stars, planets and galaxies of the Universe danced and swung in their own interlocking gravitational patterns creating a silent cacophony of incalculable movement.

The tranquillity of the infinite night was broken by a huge shape gliding through space. The _Luna_ class Imperial battleship, the _Emperor's Mercy_ effortlessly lumbered into the gravity well of the planets of the Vantruum system like a gargantuan metal whale, weapon emplacements gleaming in the light of the local star and sensor antennae and all other structures protruding from the superstructure. Her adamantium prow cut through space with deadly grace. The warship was a mobile icon of Imperial might.

Lord Admiral Janus Umbra Infractus felt sorry for what he was about to do for a moment before he hardened his heart for what had to be done. The planet that hung below his ship had cost the Imperium millions of lives in civilian costs and the costs of the Imperial Guard's fighting men. The heretics had taken the capital of Verdana Secundus some two and a half Terran standard months ago. The survivors of the botched attempt to retake the world for the Emperor had been put to death by the Imperial Commissariat and the Inquisition had sent out a request to Segmentum Command for the Emperor's most dire judgement on his stray subjects: an Exterminatus, the complete and total destruction of life on a planet in order to purge the taint of heresy completely. Such dire sentences needed to be so in these dark times.

Janus turned when he heard the loud iron footfalls of the Space Marines of the Adeptus Astartes clanging loudly on the steel deck of the bridge. "Captain Praetus" said Janus softly, kneeling down awkwardly on a mechanical leg before the imposing eight foot Space Marine. "Rise Admiral" said the super soldier briskly. Janus did so.

"It is time to administer the Emperor's Peace to this wayward world" said Janus gravely.

"Aye! For the Emperor!" agreed Praetus, making the sign of the Aquila on his chest, slamming his armoured gauntlets onto his ceramite chest plate.

Before they could leave the bridge and attend the launch arcade to observe the holy firestorm that was soon to take place, Janus' personal vox-caster buzzed impatiently on his jaw. "What is it?" snapped Janus impatiently. Hours of preparations, sanctifications and blessings had preceded this moment. There could be no delay to the Exterminatus.

"_My Lord_" said a crewman from somewhere within the bowels of the ship. "_There has been some sort of immaterial disturbance in section Sigma 1255a3148h_" Janus' remaining blood ran cold in his heavily modified body. Captain Praetus tensed; his finger twitched an inch away from his bolt pistol. "Warp based?" asked Janus.

He had heard reports of devastating boarding actions undertaken by the ruinous powers of Chaos by use of Warp based teleportation. He could not let the Chaotic taint from the world below escape the man-made cataclysm that was soon to befall them.

"_No my lord. I cannot verify it but the Tech-Priests and servitors identify it as a temporal disturbance with no visible life signs_"

"Dispatch guardsmen to that area on the double crewman!" Growled Janus angrily "Send no less than three – no, four squads do you hear me? Secure the area and tell the men that they are authorised to use _lethal_ force" putting emphasis on the word _lethal_ "We can't risk any interference at this critical stage"

"_Acknowledged_" replied the crewman "_Over and out_" the vox-caster went dead with a static crackle. "Come, Admiral" said Praetus "let us administer the Emperor's Judgement" and to emphasise his point, the Space Marine Captain cocked his bolt pistol and took off the safety catch whilst his Battle Brothers did the same to their bolters. It was time. Time to incinerate the evil below them with holy fire.

**Meanwhile . . .**

"Oh come on Jack!" said Martha pleadingly, using her best "puppy dog" look. "I'd love to come with you but I've got to help my team" he trailed off.

"Torchwood can wait" said the Doctor buoyantly, jumping out of his chair by the console. "We can take you back to the point you left Cardiff. Your colleagues won't even notice that you were gone!"

"Pleeease! Just _one_ trip!" begged Martha.

A month had passed since the Master's death and the Earth had been returned to normal. Martha had decided to carry on travelling with the Doctor but Jack had to return to his post in Torchwood Cardiff. Life went on for the Doctor and Martha but they both found that they missed the flamboyant Captain Jack's blend of bravado and style when he travelled in the TARDIS.

Time Lord and Human waited to see what Jack would say before the ex-Time Agent walked through the TARDIS door and embraced them. "I guess one trip couldn't hurt" he said through a grin that threatened to split his face as the three friends entered the control room. Even the TARDIS gave a happy hum to show her happiness at Jack's return.

"So then Doctor!" said Martha eagerly. "Got anywhere or any_when_ that might be of interest to our dear Cap'n?" she said, throwing in a mock salute to Jack. The Doctor feigned deep intellectual thought and stroked a pretend beard for a few moments before pressing buttons on the console wildly with childlike eagerness.

"You are going to _love_ this!" he said happily. "The 41st millennium" he announced dramatically, "The year 41008 AD to be precise. An age of renaissance, peace and advancement for the human race and its neighbours" finished the Doctor with a dramatic flourish as the Time Rotor started to whirr smoothly.

"Any place in particular?" asked Martha questioningly. The Doctor gave a stage wink before answering "Verdana Secundus, second planet of the Vantruum system in the Milky Way's Crucis arm. Of course you humans haven't colonised other galaxies yet, I'm afraid that you'll have to wait another 30'000 years for that." He trailed off to operate more of the living machinery

"Can you tell us what it's like?" asked Jack, slumping down into one of the well worn chairs that surrounded the console. "Oh, it is beautiful!" said the Doctor with a peculiar look in his eyes. "The forests and grasslands go on forever and the rivers are like flowing crystal. You two are gonna _love_ it!" said the Doctor enthusiastically.

Suddenly, several things happened at once to shatter the peace. An ominous red glow flooded the TARDIS and the knell of the Cloister Bell echoed throughout the living vessel, the Time Rotor began to screech as if it had met an obstacle and the Doctor fell out of his chair, clutching his head in his hands and screaming in pure agony. Sparks began to flow from the exotic alien machinery of the TARDIS console and the whole vessel began to shake uncontrollably through the vortex.

Bewildered, Martha staggered over to the Doctor to help him. The way he spasmed told Martha's medical eye that he was having some sort of fit or psychological trauma but in her medical career, she had never seen one this severe. As she rolled the Doctor over to examine his eyes for brain damage, she gasped in horror. Instead of the calm and steady brown eyes which she knew and loved, a blazing swirl of blinding hellfire blared out of his eyes.

He grabbed her with the desperation of a lost child, terror written on his face. Then he spoke. "Its there Martha!" he gasped painfully "Its there! ALWAYS THERE!!" he yelled through gritted teeth. "Wh-what is?" she stammered fearfully. "There is no peace!" he gasped "only the embrace of Chaos!" suddenly he let go of her as he let out a horrible scream of pain and agony before falling on the floor with horrifying stillness.

"DOCTOR!!" she yelled as the TARDIS ground to an agonising halt and all was still.

Shaken, Martha crawled over to the Doctor and checked his dual pulse. Both were dead. She tried to resuscitate him by thumping the areas over his hearts several times like she had done when they had first met on the Moon but to no avail. Desperately, she performed mouth-to-mouth to try and revive him. _Please Doctor_ she thought pleadingly. _Don't die and leave us stuck out here_. She had seen him withstand the ravages of the Master's ageing as well as countless other tricky spots on their travels. He just _couldn't_ die now. He couldn't leave her like this. On her forth attempt at CPR, the Doctor spluttered back to life with a feeble cough. This was enough though for Jack to give a loud whoop of triumph.

"Ohhh my head" said the Doctor feebly as he tried to sit up. "What happened to you Doctor?" asked Jack.

"You tell me" said the Doctor groggily.

"You don't remember?" said Martha perplexed. "The TARDIS went crazy and you had some sort of fit, started to say crazy gibberish and your _eyes_ . . ." she couldn't go on. Finally able to stand, the Doctor staggered over to the console and checked the TARDIS' readouts. "Well we're here" said the Doctor "Year 41008, Verdana Secundus"

"Then what just happened?" said Martha

"I don't know" said the Doctor unsurely.

"Do you think we should still go outside?" said Jack warily.

"'Course we should!" said the Doctor, all signs of his recent trauma forgotten and a smile on his face "We didn't come all the way out here to turn back did we?"

The trio stepped out of the TARDIS – and into a cramped metal space. The TARDIS could barely fit in, let alone the travellers. "Blimey Doctor, nice parking!" said Martha sarcastically as the Doctor smiled again. "A closet!" he said happily "I remember landing the TARDIS in a closet like this once" he said reminiscing on old times. He didn't think about his time with Rose so much now since Martha had joined him but she still found it slightly annoying when he looked back on his times with the mysterious blonde girl.

With a quick blue flash from the sonic screwdriver, the Doctor opened the steel bulkhead and closed it behind him. As they explored the wide corridor around them, Jack looked out of a window. "Um, Doctor" said Jack "You said we'd be going to a planet right?"

"Right"

"It seems you missed by a few hundred thousand kilometres"

"Ah right" said the Doctor as he stared out into space. "Well there's Verdana right there, we're in orbit around it"

"In a great big bloody spaceship by the looks of it" said Martha staring at the verdant green world in front of them.

"Human design by the looks of it. Slightly old, antique, archaic even" he said looking for the right words. "This is wrong" said the Doctor "This type of ship would have died out at least 20,000 years ago".

No sooner had the Doctor noticed this, bulkheads opened on either side of them and the tramping of boots on steel could be heard. No fewer than twenty eight humans clad in green flak jackets and wielding some kind of rifle had surrounded them and fanned out to prevent any escape. They had fixed bayonets on their rifles. One of the soldiers shouted at the top of his lungs "IMPERIAL GUARD!! STAY WHERE YOU ARE!!" The soldiers closed in and had the trio encircled in a ring of steel bayonets and blackened weapon muzzles. Jack tried to draw his revolver from inside his trench coat but one of the soldiers knocked it out of his hands.

"Get down on the floor right now!" yelled one of them in the Doctor's face. All three winced in pain as metal handcuffs cut into their wrists and bayonets prodded their backs. After they had been secured and thoroughly searched, the soldiers had marched them through the ship for roughly ten minutes before they arrived in some sort of command centre. "This is wrong" whispered the Doctor in Martha's ear "How so?" said Martha sarcastically. As if being arrested by armed soldiers wasn't _wrong_ enough. "You humans speak English in this period of history"

"Well what are they speaking in then?" asked Martha, keen to know what the TARDIS was translating.

"They're speaking _Latin_ or some refined form of it. The TARDIS is sorting it out for us"

"But Latin is a dead language. It died out 2000 years ago?" said Jack looking puzzled.

"Looks like you're wrong" said the Doctor before one of the soldiers winded him with a punch to the stomach. "Stow that garbage" he growled as the Doctor grimaced in pain before falling silent.

Oddly, instead of the scrubbed smell of recycled air that they were expecting to smell in a spaceship, _incense_ smoke hung thick in the air and the crew all seemed to be in a trance of chanting unknown benedictions. The soldiers forced them to their knees as huge, heavy footfalls clanged on the deck.

A huge armoured figure stepped out of the shadows towards them. He was a human but he was at least eight feet tall and clad in blue armour of some kind. Fine gold filigree was laid into the trim of the armour, purity seals, golden skull insignia and badges of honour were stamped all over the bodywork. The huge shoulder pads bore the insignia of a stylised white inverted Omega symbol with the word _Ultramarines_ written beneath it. The other bore a double headed golden Aquila with the words _Imperium Dominatus _written beneath it. His face was a patchwork quilt of scars which told a story of near constant warfare and conflict. To Martha he looked like some futuristic Crusader.

"Identify yourselves" boomed the man, fingering a large calibre pistol on his belt. "Hello, I'm the Doctor" said the Doctor cheerfully looking up into the man's ruined face, craning his neck to meet his eyes. The Doctor could have easily fitted inside the man's heavily muscled torso with room to spare.

"And this is Martha Jones and this is Captain Jack" he finished waving his hands at his companions. The huge man raised an eyebrow unimpressed with the Doctor's optimism. _Tough crowd_ thought the Doctor as he observed the huge man's grim, stoic expression.

Another man emerged from the smoke filled shadows. Martha suppressed a gasp as she saw his face. He was clad in a fine naval uniform and a gilded cape which made her guess that he was the Captain of this ship yet he was so heavily augmented with cybernetic constructs and replacement parts that he reminded her of the Cybermen which had invaded London last year. "You have been caught trespassing on the Imperial warship _Emperor's Mercy_, he said in an oily mechanical baritone "during a highly critical and sensitive military action" he continued.

"Who are you then, the Cyber Controller?" asked the Doctor sarcastically. Despite the situation, Martha couldn't suppress a giggle. "Indolent worm!" he muttered dangerously. "I am Lord Admiral Janus Umbra Infractus of the Segmentum Solar defense fleet. Servant of the most beneficent Emperor of Terra and Captain of the _Emperor's Mercy_ and I am _not_ to be laughed at!" The mechanical blend of metal and flesh that was his face was mere inches from the Doctor's by the time he finished.

"You are of no importance to me" he said with a wave of his bionic fist. Maybe you'll learn some respect for the Emperor's subjects when you witness His mighty redemption at work in the Galaxy's darkest places. More of the huge blue armoured "Ultramarines" as the Doctor had come to know them as emerged and effortlessly dragged him and his companions towards the window where Janus now stood. "LEAVE THEM ALONE!!" he shouted at them but to no avail. Armoured hands roughly threw the Doctor to the deck. Through the view port was Verdana Secundus, green and glistening in the starlight.

"Behold _Doctor_" said Janus. "The wayward world of Verdana Secundus has been corrupted by the taint of the Ruinous powers of Chaos. Suddenly terrible memory seared through the Doctor's alien brain as he heard the word _Chaos_.

"This holy warship shall rain atomic fire upon the heretics who scorned the Emperor's mighty name" he continued to preach "They have brought the Emperor's most dire judgement upon themselves"

Klaxons began to blare through the ship as sick dread began to build up in the Doctor's hearts as he realised what was happening. Across the ship, weapons platforms began to warm up, missile silos loaded their terrible loads into firing tubes and Lance cannons began to draw power from the ships plasma reactors.

"You can't!" said the Doctor pleadingly to Janus "There are innocents on that planet! Families, _children_!!"

"Then they would have been delivered to the Emperor's Light" said Janus coldly before speaking into a radio "Gunnery crew, burn this planet"

"NO!!" screamed the Doctor as the deck beneath them began to shudder before witnessing the unthinkable.

Lance strikes split the planet's crust open like an eggshell. As molten magma began to seep through the breach, thermonuclear missiles rained down upon the hole in the crust, too fast to shoot down and unstoppable in their descent and velocity. For five minutes, the bombs rained down, boring into the planet's core before a fireball of impossible size ripped across the planet, incinerating the atmosphere from existence and making the whole surface a simmering oven of molten rock in the void until it rapidly cooled and cracked into millions of rock fragments in the punishing cold vacuum. Billions of souls snuffed out in an instant by a nuclear inferno unleashed not by the Daleks or the Sontarans but by _Humanity_.

The universe had become a little bit darker.

"It is done" said Janus grimly. "Ave Imperator" he said. _Ave Imperator_ echoed the rest of the crew. Janus looked at the ashen-faced Time Lord and saw a single tear running down his face as he re-lived the horrors of the War which took away his own life.

"Take them away" said Janus dismissively. Rough hands grabbed the Doctor although he couldn't feel it.

_Is this what humanity had come to?_ He asked himself as he and his companions were locked away in the dark. _Burning planets for rebelling?_ Once he got out of here he would put this Galaxy right again.

**Whew! Longest chapter I have **_**ever **_**written. EVER!! I have always wanted to cross over two of my most favourite sci-fi brands and now the deed is done! Also sorry for hurting the Doc. Really really sorry and all that! Due to ongoing Robin Hood work, I'm afraid you won't be able to expect another chapter for a while . . . sorry.**

**Please leave a review on the way out and tell me what you think! I spent all night writing this so pleeease leave one! I'll try and get Martha to do a puppy dog look on you if not Jack or the Doc or all three if you like!**

**Many CyberHugs from the Spirit!**


	2. A Lead Emerges

**Exams and GCSE revision are the bane of my life at the moment so I hope you'll understand why there has been a slump in my fanfiction recently. Tell me what you think and Google Warhammer 40'000 if you don't understand the lore of it.**

**Disclaimer: Doctor Who and Warhammer 40,000 are not mine but I'm working on it (the Doctor Who bit anyway)**

**Glossary: Xenos – the Imperial terminology for anything alien or inhuman in origin.**

He played it over again in his head. The epic scale of the destruction and loss of life caused by the man-made cataclysm had brought back his buried memories of the Time War and he had come close to his breaking point, his shatterpoint. Again the flash of the firestorm and the blinding glare of Lance strikes splitting Verdana Secundus' crust open to bring forth the fire from within burned inside the Doctor's head.

Jack and Martha shuddered at memories of the Year That Never Was. Memories of Toclafane spheres descending upon the Islands of Japan and incinerating them one by one, giggling with homicidal glee as people burned into particulate ash or fell apart into wet chunks of meat as blades cut the air apart while their Master laughed maniacally overhead.

The trio had plenty of time to get used to their surroundings. The cell was little more than a metal box which measured eight paces across, ten long and just over six foot high which meant the Doctor and Jack had to stoop slightly when standing so the three of them opted to sit on the single bench in appalled silence. A single spluttering illumination strip cast a pale yellow light on the bare box. Rust and fungi stains surrounded the light, clinging to life. The Doctor had been in this type of cell before. It was designed to intimidate and weaken the prisoner's mental defences before questioning, interrogation or worse.

It would have been relatively easy for the Doctor to open the cell door had the human soldiers or "Imperial Guard" as they called themselves had no taken away his sonic screwdriver. Hours seemed to pass but none of them knew the time as the soldiers had taken their watches as well. They had even taken Jack's Vortex Manipulator and his revolver.

There was no way out.

After hours of dead silence save for the distant creak of machinery and their own ragged breathing, the huge bulkhead that was the cell door opened and a squad of the soldiers grabbed the time-travellers and dragged them away to separate rooms. Martha just had enough time to call for the Doctor before the doors closed and they were separated.

He didn't resist when they forced him to sit on a cold metal chair. He didn't speak a word when they handcuffed his arms behind his back but when he saw the man opposite him, the anger burned within him, leaving him heady with rage and hatred and pumping his hearts furiously like jackhammers.

Admiral Infractus was sitting opposite him, steam and vapours curling off of his gleaming machined artifice and beside him were more of the bulky blue-armoured "Ultramarines" including the scarred one from the bridge.

"THOSE PEOPLE WERE _**DEFENCELESS**__!!_" roared the Doctor at the mix of flesh, plastic and metal alloys which was once a man. "YOU ONLY WANTED TO DESTROY YOUR ENEMIES BUT THAT _WASN'T ENOUGH_ FOR YOU WASN'T IT?! YOU _**HAD**__ TO_ DESTROY THAT PLANET BECAUSE YOU _COULD_!! BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT THE HUMAN RACE DOES _BEST_!!" he stopped his rant to catch his breath and to gauge Janus' reaction, infuriatingly, the man-machine _smiled_ at him, revealing the toothless gums of an old man.

_How dare he?! _thought the Doctor angrily.

"Do you know who I work for?" he asked the Doctor as he sat before him. "You're so called "Emperor" spat the Doctor like the word was a bitter poison in his mouth.

"Choose your next words with _considerable_ care Doctor" warned Janus coldly, all earlier signs of playfulness and ease gone "I am not one to suffer fools". Behind him, the glowering "Ultramarines" bristled and clenched their huge, gauntleted fists and their scarred captain drew his huge sidearm and pointed it straight at the Doctor's head. The barrel was so huge that one shot would liquidise much of the Doctor's upper body. His weapon was more akin to a hand-cannon than a pistol.

"Touch a nerve did I?" asked the Doctor, secretly delighted to have the odds in his favour again despite the twitching overdeveloped trigger finger a few millimetres away from converting his head into a red smear on the wall. "The God-Emperor of Mankind rules _all_ Doctor and you will learn that soon enough!" said Janus coldly. "I was authorised to destroy Verdana Secundus by the highest levels of the Inquisition itself. All the way from Terra and the High Lords of the Imperium themselves! That planet was a grade Alpha threat to the Imperium of Man!"

"Let me tell you something Admiral Infractus!" said the Doctor, leaning close to the cross of man and machine, "I don't care about this "God-Emperor" of yours but I do care about His callous disregard for his citizens and planets. What sort of an Emperor would even allow such havoc to be wrought on his own people?! DOES HE CARE WHEN THE BLOOD OF INNOCENT CHILDREN IS SPILT?! OR WHEN A GENOCIDE IS COMMITTED IN HIS NAME?!" the Doctor's organic nose of flesh and cartilage was now an inch away from Infractus' olfactory sensors of steel and chrome. Both men were fuming with pent up rage. Even the bulky "Ultramarines" had backed off slightly upon seeing the Oncoming Storm flickering dangerously in the Doctor's eyes, gathering pace and fury.

"Your rampant disregard for the Saviour of Mankind means nothing to me heretic" said Admiral Infractus with a contemptuous wave of his one remaining organic hand. "However _these_ on the other hand do interest me and my associates of the Adeptus Mechanicus". He reached a prosthetic hand into the voluminous folds of his Robes of the Admiralty and chucked four items on the table between them, letting them clatter loudly.

The sonic screwdriver, Jack's revolver and spare bullets, the wallet containing the psychic paper and Jack's Vortex Manipulator lay in an untidy heap. The sonic screwdriver had marks on it which blemished its once smooth chrome exterior shell. Someone had tried – and failed to get into it.

"We can tell that this" said Janus as he motioned to Jack's revolver. "It is some kind of primitive slug pistol which is far inferior in design to the machinations of our own blessed order."

Putting aside the revolver, a steel hand extended over the items and with a twist of magnetism, the sonic screwdriver snapped into magnetic fingers as if by telekinesis. "_This_ blatant techno-heresy has so far eluded the efforts of the Adeptus Mechanicus' tech adepts and the ships Machine Spirit but-"

"Techno-_what_?!" spluttered the Doctor, utterly flabbergasted at what he was hearing. "You're treating your technology like it's _alive_! Like it's some form of _deity_! For heavens sakes you humans should be smarter that this!!"

"So you _are_ a Xenos then!" he exclaimed triumphantly. "That would explain why your scans showed a dual cardiovascular system. This makes little difference to your fate however except after Inquisitorial processing which I _doubt_ you will survive, you will be handed over to the Ordos Xenos for analysis, categorisation and ultimately systematic dissection".

The Doctor shivered at the thought of being strapped to some cold metallic table, blades and horrific implements of bodily dismemberment closing in . . .

_Stop_, he told himself mentally, trying to bring back some degree of calm. _Don't think about that_.

"I ask again Doctor. What. Is. It?" asked Janus, impatiently waving the Sonic Screwdriver under his nose.

"Don't hold it like that. You really don't want to" said the Doctor gravely

"Why? Is it dangerous?"

"Of course not! It just looks stupid because you are holding it the wrong way round. The beautiful thing about a Sonic Screwdriver is that it can never be dangerous. It doesn't kill, wound or maim but it is _very_ good at opening doors although wood is a bit of a problem but I am working on it though"

Looking disgusted at the innocent looking device in his steel fist, the cybernetic Admiral dropped the Sonic Screwdriver and then picked up the psychic paper and waved it in front of the Doctor's face. Text began to appear on the paper. It read:

Name: Lord Admiral Janus Umbra Infractus.

Assigned: Segmentum Solar Defence Fleet Alpha, Imperial Navy

Captain of the warship "Emperor's Mercy"

Home world: Krieg, Segmentum Tempestus

Year of the Emperor's Grace: .008 M41

So the Doctor had got the time right. But why was it so very wrong? This was meant to be the age of exploration and co-operation, not war and genocide.

"This paper has bypassed all sensor tests we have arrayed against it and even the finest telepaths on this ship aren't immune to its heretical effects. Tell us what it is and perhaps we will let your friends live long enough for the Inquisition to take them away in one piece.

"It's psychic paper" said the Doctor, not wanting Jack or especially Martha to be hurt. "It shows people whatever I want them to see. King of Belgium, Knight of TARDIS or John Smith. Whatever or whoever you want to be"

"You claim it to be psychic and yet the ships telepaths cannot sense its presence in the Warp?"

"The Warp?"

"What fool today doesn't know of the Warp? Surely not even ignorant heretics such as yourself?"

"Obviously not" said the Doctor coldly.

"I will tell you this my _alien_ friend" said Janus as he rose to his full imposing height and stared down at the Doctor, the "Ultramarines" drawing close with rumbling footfalls as metal boots clanged on the steel deck. It was the classic interrogator's attempt to intimidate the prisoner with a show of force. It was so blatantly obvious that it was almost laughable.

Ignoring the incredulously amused look on the Time Lords face, Janus composed himself as if he was getting ready to deliver a great speech and said "There are two versions of the world around us, existing parallel to one another and inexplicably separate to each other. On one side, we have the Material realm where we ply the stars and purge them of the Alien, the Mutant and the Heretic and scratch a living off the worlds of the Imperium whilst on the other side we have the Immaterium where the normal laws of nature and physics do not apply".

"How so?"

"It is a nightmare realm where the raw emotions of the beings in the Materium are manifested in the twisted forms of Chaos, be they Daemon, rogue psyker or the fallen cleric"

"a . . . parallel universe where the collective raw emotions of beings in the Materium are manifested then?" finished the Doctor uncertainly.

"For one so ignorant, you show surprising intelligence" muttered Janus, staring down at the Doctor as if he was some interesting specimen in a laboratory.

Changing the subject abruptly, the Doctor turned his attention on the huge super-human soldiers who were still exhibiting an aura of menace. It was quite clear that they had spent dozens if not hundreds of years at war. "Your friends here, the Smurfs, would you mind divulging a little knowledge with the ignorant?" Janus' lip quivered with barely contained fury at the Time Lord's quip against the super-soldiers.

"Come on!" pleaded the Doctor "one last chance to give a man his last request?"

"I will make sure it shall be your last request!" spat Janus who was now apocalyptically furious with the light hearted Time Lord.

"These men whom you would degrade with your foul heretical tongue are the Chosen of the Emperor. They are the Adeptus Astartes or Space Marines. The finest specimens of Humanity are taken and implanted with the Emperor's own blessed gene-seed. They endure training which would kill a normal man and those who survive become superhuman, Angels of Death. Clad in adamantium power armour and armed with the mightiest weapons of the Imperium's arsenal, a single Imperial Space Marine surpasses the efforts of a hundred Guardsmen in battle. A single Chapter of a thousand Astartes can do more to win a war than _one hundred thousand_ Guardsmen."

From the way they carried themselves, the benedictions they chanted, the rituals they followed and the sense of cold righteous purpose that resonated with every rumbling iron-shod footfall, these God's among men were more like fanatical Crusaders than professional soldiers like the Imperial Guard. There was too much zeal in them for the Doctor's liking.

"Captain Praetus, have our guest taken back to his cell so that he can rot. I have heard enough from him and his friends already". Infractus had evidently got bored of toying with his prey. As he rose with a resounding groan of internal cogs and pistons and the Space Marines closed in, the Doctor gathered his will together and focused it into a needle sharp point in his mind which bypassed a mental event horizon.

The Doctor was not a potent psychic by Time Lord statistics, only grade Theta on the Tandoka scale. What little psychic talent he did possess had been honed vigorously over his 903 years of life until it was like a mental rapier. With a subtle twist of his will, he traced the electrical currents flowing through the wires on his handcuffs back to the locking mechanism and by simply reversing the polarity, the handcuffs sprang open and his hands were freed.

"What heresy is this?" hissed Janus malevolently "A psyker! He is a psyker! KILL HIM!!"

"FOUL ONE!!" roared Captain Praetus as he drew his bolt pistol, his voice amplified by his power armours internal vox caster and his scarred features twisting into the well worn contortion of hatred. "THE STINK OF THE WARP IS UPON YOU, DAEMON SPAWN!!"

It took a full half a second for the six Space Marines to raise their bolters and another second to train them on the Doctor but in that time he had grabbed the effects of the time travellers on the table and brandished the Sonic Screwdriver at the towering Astartes. To pit such a puny device against such might was laughable in the eyes of the wizened old human as his malicious cackle began to resonate inside the Doctor's skull.

"Like I said!" said the Doctor with a flourish as he turned the settings up to full effect.

"It won't maim you but it sure makes a hell of a noise!"

Sonic blue glowed brilliantly in the Doctor's fist as crippling sound waves assailed the humans. The Space Marines dropped their bolters with a metallic clatter as they fell to their knees and clutched their helmets in agony which even their superhuman training and endurance could not have prepared them for. Admiral Infractus merely grimaced and whimpered in pain in the corner of the room as various openings into his remaining flesh began to bleed and his machinery began to spill hydraulic fluid, coolant and raw plasma.

The Doctor ran for the bulkhead and locked it behind him and ran straight into Martha and Jack who was wielding one of the Imperial Guards lasguns. A pile of groaning bodies clad in green flak jackets at the end of the corridor and several rapidly healing deep tissue laser hits on the Captain's face did all the explanation that the Doctor needed. "I thought I would have had to search high and low to rescue you Doc!" exclaimed Jack as he took the manipulator and revolver from the Time Lord. "No time for handshakes and hellos!" cried Martha "We've got to get back to the TARDIS and" –

_Clang_

She was interrupted as the heavy steel bulkhead of the interrogation room made a deafening _clanging_ sound as something heavy made contact with the other side of the door and struck with the force of a lorry.

_Clang_, a faint outline of a fist could be seen imprinted on the steel - an outline of an armoured fist wider than the Doctor's head. The Space Marines were trying to batter down the door with their raw godlike strength.

"Allons-y!" he yelled as they ran down the corridor, not looking for the TARDIS or safety but somewhere on this ship far away from the fanatical Ultramarines. _Here comes the fun part_ thought Martha as she coaxed more speed out of her legs. _Why is there always a hell of a lot of running to do?_

White hot shrapnel showered the corridor with a rain of molten ore and high explosive bullets as bolter rounds ripped through the adamantium plating of the bulkhead, leaving gaping holes. A guttural roar of rage and righteous fury echoed throughout the ship and struck fear into the souls of all those on board the _Emperor's Mercy_ as Captain Praetus charged headlong into the bulkhead and knocked it down with a mighty shoulder barge. Standing at over eight feet tall, the Space Marines had to stoop slightly and took up the entire width of the corridor in with their power armour.

"Get after them" croaked Janus weakly as he clutched his aged chest and wheezed heavily. "Send for Apothecary Garcion" barked Praetus as he and his Space Marines charged off after the three prisoners, leaving Brother Juno behind to look after the now crippled Janus.

With a glance of his helmets advanced optical lenses and onboard telemetry, Brother Juno could tell that something was seriously wrong with the Admiral's breathing as he hacked and coughed uncontrollably. As gently as he could, the Ultramarine cradled the old man in his arms like a child and set off. Infractus would require more . . . surgical reconstruction when all this was over.

"They're coming!" yelled Jack as the deep throaty roar of bolter rounds rent the air accompanied the curses and challenges of the pursing Space Marines. They were not as fast as the light footed time travellers but their huge frames and awesome firepower meant that they could not be challenged directly in the narrow corridors.

A stray bolter round slammed into Jack's back with the force of a tank shell, the shaped charge bored into his back and blew a hole out of the front of his chest with a jet of molten metal and a stream of scorched blood, seared gore and shattered bone fragments which splattered everything around him with a fine red mist of viscera.

The Captain was thrown about twenty feet in front of the Doctor and Martha and lay still before he hauled himself up with a groan of pain and took a pot shot at their pursuers with his lasgun. Predictably, the laser bolt did as much effect on the Space Marine as a bee sting which only served to enrage him further.

"THIS IS THE JUDGEMENT OF THE RIGHTEOUS, _SCUM_!!" roared the Marine as he bore down upon them with the terrifying finality of a meteor strike.

"You blew a hole in my coat you prick!" yelled Jack in defiance as he sprayed his tormentors with more las fire before the Doctor and Martha had to drag him away – straight into the mob of Guardsmen who hemmed the three of them into a corner with a ring of lasguns and bayonets. The five Space Marines shoved through the massed soldiers and took aim at them.

No way out. Boxed. Checkmate.

"Prepare to meet your misbegotten maker, _alien_!" ordered Captain Praetus as he slammed a fresh magazine into his bolt pistol.

"Hold on a moment, well, before dying could you please tell me what _this_ is?" said the Doctor at ninety miles an hour as he fished out a vial of golden liquid from inside his long brown overcoat. The Astartes looked perplexed and cocked his head quizzically.

"I am in no mood for games foul Xenos" muttered Praetus through gritted teeth with barely contained murder in his voice.

"Well that's a shame then" said the Doctor almost remorsefully "because I am!"

The golden liquid glowed suddenly and the Doctor waved farewell in triumph at the outraged Imperials as the TARDIS appeared around the trio and shielded them from harm as small arms fire bounced off of her blue hull.

Inside the Control room, the Doctor launched himself at the console and ramped the extrapolator shielding up to full power. "Were those what I just thought they were?" asked Jack as he wiped congealed blood off his shirt and trench coat. "Huon particles yeah" said the Doctor as he pocketed the vial. "I picked it up from Torchwood's Thames barrier laboratory last year actually. Got me out of a sticky situation with the Racnoss as a matter of fact"

"You found Torchwood 3!" exclaimed Jack

"Well I" -

"Back to the point then?!" said Martha, interrupting them. "So what do we do now?" she asked, imploring the Doctor with those huge brown eyes of hers.

"The TARDIS has found their ship's next known coordinates from the central AI, something they call a "Machine Spirit". What they did to Verdana Secundus must have had something to do with my seizure so whatever they were fighting against there must be at the next destination too. There is something wrong with Time and Space. Emotions are being actualised in a parallel dimension in a way which is corrupting planets and populations, including that of the late Verdana Secundus. We are going to fix this anomaly and then we are going to put history and humanity back on course."

"And where do the coordinates lead to?"

"They lead to . . . Elysium. A jungle world on the outer fringes of the known Milky Way Galaxy"

"Looks like you managed to keep me around longer than you wanted me to" murmured Jack as he went off to find a new shirt, and a shower.

The Time Rotor rumbled into life and began to turn, even as small arms fire continued to be absorbed by the invisible extrapolator shield. With a shuddering groan, the TARDIS dematerialised, leaving the metallic tang of ions in the air and the Space Marines shouting in futility at the trio's escape from their heavily armoured clutches.

_Meanwhile. . ._

Admiral Infractus was barely conscious when the mechanical appendages of a medical servitor closed in on him. He still had enough life left in him to scream in defiance as blades sliced flesh and carved away organic organs and claws inserted machinery and removed tissue.

All the time, the Apothecary Garcion and Brother Juno were looking down on him as the last of his flesh was cast aside and replaced. As what little of the humanity left in the unrecognisable machine on the operating table awoke within a steel shell and carved the unresisting servitor into wet slices of meat and steel, he swore revenge on the Doctor, the man who caused this damage. The creature which was once a living, breathing human called Janus Umbra Infractus would hunt him down until the end of all flesh if he had to. The Emperor's Navy was vast, His armies numbered more than the stars and the Galaxy was too small for him and his friends to hide forever in his little Blue Box.

**Whew! Another huge chapter from me and just in time for the weekend too! Please leave a review on your way out because I would really like to know what people think of the Doctor Who/40k crossover idea. Any suggestions would be appreciated too!**

**The Spirit**


End file.
